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Thursday, April 22, 2004

You'd Usually Think Newer is Better

Ugghh...and I thought getting a new work computer would be a good thing. How could I be so completely wrong? So, the computer I've been using at work was a top of the line 500 mhz PII. Yeah, I know, that's way more speed than I could ever need for running Photoshop, IIS, Frontpage, and Word all at the same time. Ok, so that was complete sarcasm in case you didn't know. That computer chugged and chugged whenever I tried to do anything in more than one application. Luckily, I was given a new computer to accommodate my needs--a laptop even!

This helped remedy some of my needs, but it created a host of problems all on its own. First, the benefits. I can now work from home if I need to, which is wonderful considering I have a 80 mile round trip commute every day. I usually don't need to be in the office for anything so I can get most of what I need done from home. The laptop is also a little faster than my old desktop being it's a 750 mhz PIII, but it still chugs along when I try to do too much. Beyond the portability and processor upgrade, the thing has created a couple of wonderful little annoyances.

This biggest annoyance is that I need some bulky docking station to hook anything up to the thing. There are no ports on the laptop itself besides one USB port. I can't even hook up a mouse without some big docking station. Because of this, I'm forced to use the stupid mouse stick on the keyboard when I travel with it. It's not so bad, but I'd much rather have a mouse.

Along with the docking station annoyance, when I have a monitor hooked up to the docking station, the graphics card on the laptop will not output a screen resolution as high as on the laptop's screen. I run the laptop's screen at 1400x1050, but the most it will output to a standard monitor is 1280x1024. This creates a weird ass looking virtual desktop where I can't see everything on a normal monitor and everything is huge. So far there has been no solutions to fixing this problem so I no longer even use my nice, big 19" monitor at work because I'd be stuck at a lower resolution than on my laptop's little 14 or 15 inch screen.

The last minor annoyance about it is the 5 minute boot up time. I wish I was kidding, but this thing takes next to forever to start up. I thought for it being a faster computer it would boot up a little quicker, but it takes so long. This will get to being a pain over time because I shut it down when I transport it because hibernating on windows 2000 machines is playing with fire. Half the time hibernation doesn't work or it just shuts down anyways. As it is I usually go get coffee or do something else for a bit while it takes its time starting up.

Ok, enough about the new computer. It's caused me enough headaches (and is also the reason I haven't updated in a while). This past weekend I was up in St. Cloud for the weekend. The SJU alumni frisbee players were invited to play in a little mini-tourney at St. John's on Sunday and I also wanted to go up and see Kristin. On Friday night, Kristin and I went to the Skatin' Place in St. Cloud with a big group of people from SJU and CSB. Man, did it feel weird to have roller skates on again after about 8 or 9 years passing since the last time I've had them on. It was an interesting experience to say the least. I was easily one of the worst skaters there. It was sad, but then again, at least everyone had something to laugh at.

As for the rest of the weekend's events, that will have to wait for tomorrow......... too much other stuff to do yet instead of journaling, but definitely stop by again tomorrow!